General election set to be intriguing contest

Duncan Crow - Conservative group leader, Crawley Borough Council

With the general election being just over three months away, it does appear to be shaping up to be an intriguing contest for anyone interested in elections.

Virtually all pundits are giving a consistent prediction that we will have another hung parliament, but varying as to whether the Conservative or Labour will be the largest party.

My prediction is that I think the Conservatives will receive the most votes nationally but I am unsure whether this will turn into the largest number of seats.

There is a bias in the system which means that Labour can win many more seats if they receive the same number or fewer votes than the Conservatives. Unfortunately for democracy, Labour MPs cynically blocked both the proposal to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 and to create more equal-sized constituencies that would have put fairness back into our democracy.

This means there is a realistic prospect of Ed Miliband becoming Prime Minister, even if he were to come second in the popular vote behind David Cameron.

While legitimate in a legal sense, this would leave a bitter taste in the mouth when it comes to any sense of fairness.

However, we would not hear Labour complain because their motivation is the pursuit of power and I have observed both locally and nationally, how Labour does not believe in fairness.

What colours of likely coalition we get after the election is unknown but I can make predictions as to how well I believe various coalitions would function.

The existing Conservative/LibDem coalition has a track record of good performance and mutual co-operation in putting the country first.

Where I have doubts is with Labour leading any coalition with any other party or parties. I cannot see how a party that puts their own narrow vested interests first and that doesn’t believe in real fairness can work well with anyone else in government. I believe that any Labour-led coalition would be widely seen as not being able to last five years. If so, such political uncertainty could be economically damaging for our country.